January 6 Committee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) has said that he “would love” to run against President Donald Trump in 2024.
Kinzinger was in Illinois to speak at a conference at the University of Chicago when he told a reporter about his future plans in politics and in the Republican Party.
“So, I look at it this way,” Kinzinger said when he was asked if he would run for president.
“I’ll make a decision when we get there if there’s a need and a desire.
“It’s truly not anything I’m planning right now, but I’m not going to rule it out.”
“Look, if we’re in a position, if it’s just terrible candidates and the country’s in a worse place? Maybe.
“But there’s no grand plan right now.”
Kinzinger was asked if he would run against President Trump as the Republican Parry’s nominee.
“I would love it. I really would,” Kinzinger replied, seemingly excited by the idea of running against his nemesis Trump.
“Even if he crushed me, like in a primary, to be able to stand up and call out the garbage is just a necessary thing, regardless of who it is.
“I think it’d be fun,” he continued.
“I’m exhausted of the same arguments, the same kind of performative politics.
“I don’t know. Maybe I would have run for governor.
“Maybe I would have run for Senate. Who knows?
“But yeah, my time in the House is, mercifully, coming to an end,” he said.
Kinzinger said he wrote in former CIA officer Evan McMullin’s name for president in 2016 but did vote for Trump in the general election.
“Everybody was just like, ‘You didn’t vote for Trump, you’re a piece of shit.’
“And I dealt with that for four years.
“And in 2020 I was like, he’s not going to win Illinois so I’ll just vote for him.
“But that’s a big regret.
“That and the first impeachment.
“I’m the only guy in history that didn’t vote for Trump in ’16 and did vote for him in ’20.
“I think mentally I feel more like an independent than a Republican.
“If there were more Democrats like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, I could probably identify in that area, some kind of a moderate Democrat.
“In essence, I guess I’m still comfortable holding the Republican label for now.
“Because as much as people love it or hate it, the Republican Party is going to be around for a while, and it deserves to have a battle for who it is.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I identify with anymore,” he said.
“I’m just not a Democrat.”
“Kinzinger was moving in the opposite direction of the party to stay alive,” Terry Schilling, president of the conservative American Principles Project, said.
“He’s on the wrong side. It’s a movement that has been destroyed, a party that has been destroyed.
“The Republican Party that Adam Kinzinger grew up in doesn’t exist anymore, and so he has no constituency.
“He’s basically representing the Lincoln Project wing of the party, which doesn’t exist,” Schilling said.
“They’re just Democrats, right?”
